Hacker News Reader

Comment by jollybean | Hacker News Reader

It'd be better if the author tried to identify aspects of the economy that fall into natural monopolies and therefore must have some element of public control such as 'right of way' etc.

There's 0% chance the Quebec government would start nationalizing 'farming' and there's almost no situation wherein Nationalization makes sense other than for things that involve narrow corridors of control (i.e. for power/rail) lines, and for things that scale too big for private industry.

Governments can do 'water works' doesn't mean that they are efficiently run, we wouldn't have them do unless we needed to.

Having gov. involved in some things like fibre layout and last mile ownership, possibly the little 'last mile physical boxes, sure, but the equipment and everything after that we want to have competitive.

Canada needs more competition, not a single Kafkaesque provider of services.

View on HN

> Canada needs more competition, not a single Kafkaesque provider of services.

I might need to repeat this a few more times, but I am not proposing a single provider. I'm proposing a multitude, regionally-based, monopolies, owned by the relevant state authority (municipal, provincial, federal), based on the scope. Those could be state-owned companies, coop, non-profits, I don't care: the point is that internet access is fundamentally a monopoly, so it should be state-owned, just like roads and water (ways).

That's my dream for internet infrastructure here in Canada. A national crown corporation that owns huge fiber runs across the country and undersea/cross border runs with other countries. Provincial crown corporations handle runs between cities and out into rural areas. Municipal departments own the runs to each address within their cities. It's paid for by selling access to Bell, Rogers, and any smaller independent ISP that might want to exist. Government doesn't actually supply internet to anyone; they just own and maintain the physical infrastructure since that's a natural monopoly. Competition happens at the edges by providing various services like internet access, with equal access among ISPs to use the shared infrastructure. With the immense cost of runs to each address eliminated, small ISPs would be reasonably easy to found and compete with the big players. We have groups like Teksavvy already, but they are so beholden to Bell and Rogers they can't truly compete since the big guys act like the mafia.

1) 'Regionally based monopolies' are 'monopolies'.

2) Your assumption about the internet is flawed: the 'rights of access' form a civic problem as you describe, but not the technology. Sewer drains are a well-understood problem, internet protocols are not, and they adapt rapidly. I don't have a problem with them regulating last-mile access issues, but I have no faith in my local government's ability to provide coherent access over time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com